You said that he had his barrel off, I wonder if the wasn't a cumulative issue. Improper headspace when the tube was screwed back on, coupled with improperly trimmed brass ( making the headspace issue worse), coupled with running hot rod loads. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

quote:

Originally posted by jorge:
A question for you learned gents. I've been reloading a while but I'm no expert. My 338 Win Mag sometimes exibits difficulty in closing the bolt with trimmed to specs reloaded brass. My loads are well within published figures so I know that that is not a factor. If I experience a "little" diffculty in closing the bolt, I go ahead and shoot it without any problems, but anything more than cursory difficulty in closing I reject the load outright. So the question is, should I even reject even those cases that give me even the slightest difficulty? thanks. jorge

IMO if you don't know what is causing the closing difficulty you should not shoot the round.

If one experiences these difficulties and conclusively knows that it's not relevant to pinching the bullet to the case I'd not be afraid to shoot it. Sometimes there's a slight pressure against the bolt with neck sized only cases. This is normal but when one encounters more than unusual resistance he should not fire the round.

I like FL resizing for this reason.

Could it be that his case wasn't trimmed (enough), and thus too long? With a heavy crimp I could imagine that the casemouth was forced beyond the chamber inside the barrel. (Hence the excessive force needed to close the bolt.)
When the casemouth is inside the barrel, it cannot expand when the shot is fired, and the bullet will not be released. Peak pressures would be the result. That, combined with an already too hot round might blow up the rifle.

Welcome and thank you Pat for getting signed up on Accurate Reloading and giving a first hand report. You will also find this an interesting place to hang out (Don't mind the few dipshit trolls and stay away from the Political Section)

We will probably never know for sure what happened. Most likely a combination of too hot load, some serious constriction at the throat. Plus a good measure of "if too much is just right, more is better".

You gotta have a long talk with this guy. He doesn't grasp that a little bit of knowledge is dangerous. Perhaps you need to mention to him that if he doesn't figure that out on his own, there is a real possiblity that some lawyer will school him on it.

.

Man oh man. Lately I've been messing around with a 22-250AI. Max loads in Remington brass that produced great accuracy.Well I loaded that same load in Nosler brass.It blew the primer out! Smoke came out of the action.Dang man that was enough for me.Besides that the shot was high and to the right.

Sounds like the Jap a friend had that we set out to blow up and did. Full military, so called cast receiver. Used Bullseye, increasing the charge with each shot. Third one did it, 23.0 grains. Barrel went flying out ahead of the gun, case body was left in the chamber and never did find all of the receiver. But was impressed with strength of this "weak" action. Seems like yesterday but in truth more like 50 years ago.

I saw the exact same failure, that a gunsmith brought to the Puyallup gun show. It was a Rem700 300 Win mag, and the barrel went some distance down range.

It turns out that the wrong powder was used: Varget.

jorge, sounds like the case "bodies" have expanded and as the brass has become work hardened, it has less spring-back. Thus they get tighter in the chamber. You can FULLY full length size them or try a redding body die to see if that makes them free up a bit.

Pat,..if it was the bolt that hit you,..you are one very lucky individual. Glad you are alive and functional.

Come on guys. Do you really think that 93 gr of RL 25 in front of 200 gr accubond blew that gun? Hell, guys right on this site including myself shoot 92 gr RL 25, Fed 215M, Rem Case, 200 Accubond in the 300 rum...and up to 95 gr retumbo with the same other components. Both these loads give about 3150 fps @ 15 Ft. from muzzle. chronographed. from a factory 700 bdl. Now...if he had worked up this load and then continued with this load with a new lot of RL25 without working back up to check to see if it's similiar. I have had a fast lot of RL25 where it was very similiar to RL22. But still..to blow the friggin thing up like that I think something else was amiss. Big time. I could see a 93 gr load of a fast lot locking up the action possibly. With RL25 or Retumbo: is 3150 fps w/200 accubond in 300 Rum excessive? Experienced Rum loaders speak up.

I once had a small ring of brass come off the neck of a case and stay in the chamber of my 264 mag. The fired case looked ok but with a slightly shorter neck. I've never had it happen since. I went to chamber another round, felt some resistance, and stopped everything to check it out. Don't know what the results would have been or if the bolt would have closed. I would do very careful inspection of the first fired case.

Someone once told me to never stand to the right of rifle while it is being shot.

of additional note: it has been my experience that when you get too ambitious with your loads in the 300 rum. The primer pockets expand like right now! 96 gr rl25, fed 215, rem case, 180 gr SST = 3400 fps, and although the cases ejected fine they were essentially junk because on the very next load the primers went in too easy for my liking. 3400 fps told me I was overboard. The primer pockets were the proof. I worked up to that very same charge but using a 180 gr partition and it gave but 3250 fps in the same gun using the same lot of powder. I weigh all my charges. Primer pockets fine. a pussy cat. I didn't feel like going higher and they didn't shoot that accurately anyway. Now we hear of people all the time getting 3300 to almost 3400 from 180 gr bullet in 300 rum using RL25 and Retumbo. Had this guy chrono'ed his loads?

I load for the 300RUM I've loaded 95gr of Retumbo with 200 gr accubond.Mine shot just fine but I knew that was the limit.Then I shot a Ca Black bear with that load.1st shot was broad side on a treed bear. Exit shattered its Right shoulder. 2nd shot shattered its back. 3rd shot sent into the air.Guide said he disn't care what kind of gun you use.Only way to turn him off like a switch is a head shot. Oh by the way my loads were clocked at 3,200FPS. I lost a lot of bear steak.I've since sold rifle. I could've easily killed him with a 30-06 or 308.

quote:

Originally posted by Dufur:With RL25 or Retumbo: is 3150 fps w/200 accubond in 300 Rum excessive? Experienced Rum loaders speak up.

No. I'm at 3186 with 95 grains of Retumbo (26" A-Bolt). It's quite mild compared with how I used to load things in my younger days....

Pete & Just C: I full length resize only, but I think the culprit was as you say, an improperly adjusted die. Thanks, jorge

Thanks for the all the thoughts guys... I appreciate them... The ears are still ringing and the headache/dizzy feeling doesn't seem to be getting better really quickly.. I think I'll be going back to the doctor tomorrow to make sure everything is OK...
DMB, the range was the Detroit Sportsmens Congress in Utica. My friend isn't a member there, he was there as a guest of his inlaws (who are members) along with me. I'd rather not mention his name...
One thought for Jorge, have you checked you neck wall thickness? Even with a full length resize, on well used cases, you can get some brass "flow" up into the neck and the additional thickness may be putting your loaded rounds into the "too fat" zone for your chambers neck diameter dimension... Easy enough to check...
The worst part about this KABOOM is that it will probably make me miss a .50 BMG match in PA. that I was hoping to shoot on the weekend of Oct. 15th... I had one of my .50's at the range with me on KABOOM day so that I could chrono a few loads for that event.. I never got that far and time is running out... Plus, I think if I were to fire my .50 with the way my head feels right now, my head may explode... LOL...
The more I think about all of this "KABOOM stuff" that happened and how it should have easily been avoided, the more pi$$ed I get!
I hope to meet with the guy who has the pictures tomorrow night, I'll post 'em when I get 'em....
Thanks all...

PJS50, are you familiar with some head injury symptoms to never ignore?

You mention dizzyness...not good, and probably indicated a concussion, though mild.

Any vision problems, mood changes/swings, unusual sleepyness, or progressively worsening symptoms, no matter how mild, are VERY bad. They MIGHT (not to alarm you, but...) be a sign of a slow bleed in the brain...subdural hemmorage IIRC. Any hit witha blunt object sufficient to make you beed has the potential in my book...I'm sure some with more medical training than me can chime in with better details.

99.99% of the time you will be fine, but the .001% is fatal, so it is worth looking out for.

Good luck, and don't hesitate to see the doctor! Sounds like you took a pretty severe wallop to the head!

I have no experience loading a .300 RUM (and probably won't) but the load doesn't sound hot enough to just obliterate a rifle. There has to be more to the story, probably wasn't RL25, but we also had a guy who had already blown up a handgun doing his own gunsmithing this all sounds bad to me. I've had head separations on some 7 Mag brass years ago when I was oversizing the belted mag cases, and the only indication that it happened was when I opened the bolt and tossed out a 3/8 in. piece of brass. I just let it cool and tapped the butt on the ground and the case fell out. A head separation from fatigue of brass isn't that serious.

Here's a clue..... well, maybe

Slightly hot load, cratered primer after first firing so there exists possible pre-existing damage to the bolt head/firing pin, the real telling tale is the difficult feeding of the second round. I would suggest that the shoulder may have been pushed back during the reloading process or while chambering the round (bulging neck near crimp) thus adding a headspace problem to an already precarious situation, hence the case head seperation and the KABOOM. Inspect his remaing loads.

I reload exclusively for the 300 rum and have shot a lot of 200grn accubonds and nosler partitions with 92grns of RL25 - it is a very accurate load for me. I've had zero problems in doing so. I've also put a crimp on some of them to see if accuracy would be affected but it didn't make any noticeable difference. Something else happened here that we don't know about and may not ever find out. My 700 bdl has around 200 rounds threw it with 120 of those being my reloads. I full length size every time and get 4-5 loads per case before primer pockets get loose and I have to bump the shoulder back a little bit to get the cases to chamber smoothly. That's the point at which I throw them out.

Glad no one was seriously hurt in this bad blow up. Would be intrested to see if any more could be found out about what caused it.
I realize we all can make some stupid mistakes if we don't keep our minds clear when reloading. I did just last week. I was loading some 100 grain Hornday spire point bullets and some 120 grain pro hunters for my .260. Was going to shoot some of both one day. I shot a few 100s and tried to chamber the 120s but they wouldn't go and it would have taken a lot to get them to go. So I finished the 100s and went home. What had happened was that I had finished loading the 100s and baged them up and went to the 120s. But I didn't change the bullet seater for the 120s leaving them to far out of the case and jamming against the rifleling. So I seated them deeper and they chambered perfectly. Just a small thing but something to remember when dealing with different weight bullets.

Glad no on ewas hurt bad on this blow up. We can all make some stupid mistakes if we don't keep a clear mind while dealing with reloading.
I made one this week. I was loading some 100 grain Hornday spire points and some 120 grain pro hunters. I finished with the 100s and bagged them up then went on with the 120s.
At the range I shot some 100s and then went to the 120s but they wouldn't chamber. I tried several and none of them would chamber. When I got home I found I didn't change the bullet seater for the 120s and left them to far out and hitting the rifling. I seated them to their pattern round and they chambered fine. Just a small thing but something that needs to be watched when loading different weight bullets. I would have never tried to see if I could have forced one in the chamber for sure!

Didn't mean to post twice

quote:

Originally posted by jorge:
A question for you learned gents. I've been reloading a while but I'm no expert. My 338 Win Mag sometimes exibits difficulty in closing the bolt with trimmed to specs reloaded brass. My loads are well within published figures so I know that that is not a factor. If I experience a "little" diffculty in closing the bolt, I go ahead and shoot it without any problems, but anything more than cursory difficulty in closing I reject the load outright. So the question is, should I even reject even those cases that give me even the slightest difficulty? thanks. jorge

JORGE:
Are you crimping your bullets? Even with full length sizing, if your seater die is screwed down just a bit too tight, it can swell the case at the front of the shoulder.

Try chambering a sized case and if it chambers easily, then seat your bullet and chamber it. If it is snug, your seating die is set too tight. Another way to check is to spray the case with aerosol sight black. The sight black will be rubbed off where it is tight in your chamber.

The sight black will also tell you if your sizing die needs to be screwed in a tad more.

Regards,
hm

You know,..Vapodog's pics make me wander a bit further into the abyss some often refer to as my mind. IF, IF, IF by some coincidence, some portion of the weakened boltface of the savage bolt that was supposed to support the casehead had failed during the first firing, and then the jamming of the second round was due to a peice of boltface material that was lodged behind the casehead (still clinging on somehow) and the next round was somehow jamm fitted into the chamber and the bolt was somehow locked into position, COULD that space behind the casehead coupled with the jammed bullet seating and the weakened boltface have resulted in a super high pressure spike in the barrel thread/chamber area have blown the action?

All in all I think the wrong powder was used and i think he got away with the first shot....

damaging his action and not realizing that he had I just wonder how much experiance he really
had loading any cartridge.

I personally would bet that the powder container he was using, also had some faster powder that got mixed in with the right powder....
The second round had more of the faster powder in the second case...

Just pray Pat is okay.. CDF had a good point about might having a mild concussion...get it checked out...

Goes to show, reloading isn't for amateurs!

people need to pay attention....

I also tinker with my savage (two barrels). I have set the headspace to just over SAAMI specs, and some factory loads were tight. I wonder if too little headspace could have caused some of the trouble. It would also shrink the trim length.

I'd second the powder mix theory. I've done the mistake myself - cost me a whole 1/2 pound of powder. I dumped some IMR 4350 back into a can of 4895. I hear it makes good fertilizer, but I burned it.

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:
Here's a clue..... well, maybe

So what's the tandum looking double locking lugs arrangement.??
Also noticed the "pin" maybe to hold the bolt lug portion on.
It may not be possible on a Savage, but here we have an bolt action with a pin holding the lugs piece to the bolt and one broke and fell out leaving the bolt to appear to be locked but the lugs didn't turn. Killed the shooter.

Also my 76 PF M70 bolt seems to have a seperate section just behind the lugs. Is it screwed in or just a lathe mark.??

John L.

I also wonder if the guy was handloading and is not admitting to duplexing his load....

I have seen a few baffons do this...put a load of fast powder in, and then top the rest off with a slow powder....the theory being the faster powder will get pressures up quicker, then the lower amounts of slow powder will cause the pressure to subside when it gets too high...

at least that was the way the fool who doing it, explained it to me.. I see him at our local range, I just go shoot in another section!

Seafire are you serious.Has he ever chronny any of his loads? What a brave idiot! Fools courage! What does he expect to gain? Earlypost I mentioned how I shot a Ca black bear with a max load of Retumbo and 200gr Accubond.It blew his body up I lost a bunch of prime bear steak.

quote:

Originally posted by seafire/B17G:
I also wonder if the guy was handloading and is not admitting to duplexing his load....

I have seen a few baffons do this...put a load of fast powder in, and then top the rest off with a slow powder....the theory being the faster powder will get pressures up quicker, then the lower amounts of slow powder will cause the pressure to subside when it gets too high...

at least that was the way the fool who doing it, explained it to me.. I see him at our local range, I just go shoot in another section!

I have heard of that, and thought it was the nuttiest thing. If I remember right the reloading pages here have a few loads that talk about that.

quote:

A couple of observations here.....93 grains of RL25 and a 200 grain bullet is redlined and then some IMO At this point it really don't take much to cause trouble.

True! But it seems improbable to me that one grain over would destroy the rifle. It appears that this "accident" was caused by whatever made it necessary to have to use unusual force to close the bolt - that should have resulted in enough curiosity to make the shooter investigate what was wrong-instead he chose to "shoot it out", with dire results! IF one round in a batch of reloads refuses to enter the chamber, better check it out FIRST!!

I am getting the picture tonight...
The guy who took them is meeting me at the club so I can download them onto my laptop... I am also going to go back out on the range and pull a few ceiling tiles down to look for more receiver pieces... Maybe I'll find some with some hair?...
I called my doctor yesterday regarding some of my latest symptoms and he had me go in and see him right after work yesterday.. He also scheduled me for another Cat Scan last night to make sure.. He also said that just in case it looked bad, he was going to put one of his surgeon friends on notice so that they could open my head up last night if need be (all I could think of was HOLY CRAP!)
The CT scan results: No apparent hemmoraging (WHEW!)... He told me to drink more fluids and get more rest.. I told the wife that he said I needed more rest and B.J.'s... She didn't buy it... LOL...
Probably have pics tomorrow...

.

quote:

Originally posted by PJS50:
I told the wife that he said I needed more rest and B.J.'s... She didn't buy it... LOL...

I've tried that one before, too (didn't work for me either... )

quote:

Originally posted by jorge:
A question for you learned gents. I've been reloading a while but I'm no expert. My 338 Win Mag sometimes exibits difficulty in closing the bolt with trimmed to specs reloaded brass. My loads are well within published figures so I know that that is not a factor. If I experience a "little" diffculty in closing the bolt, I go ahead and shoot it without any problems, but anything more than cursory difficulty in closing I reject the load outright. So the question is, should I even reject even those cases that give me even the slightest difficulty? thanks. jorge

A slight effort in chambering FL sized reloads may be nothing more than the case shoulder contacting the chamber and thats a good thing in general. Of course you want to know that is the reason and not something that may be dangerous.

Just like the accident in this topic it's possible for a lot of variables to be all in one direction. I would not over react however.

When we FL size bottlenecked rounds the die squeezes the body and that forces the shoulder forward taking up some headspace to the shoulder. So the die must be set in a precise manner to have the shoulder of the case touch or just about touch the chamber.

I have seen bullets mixed in boxes such as 7mm's in 270's and in particular from Hornady. Neck thickness varies and so do cases. The second shot usually shows higher traditional pressure signs anyway due perhaps from a hotter chamber warming the next round.

As to the blowup in question my sympaties first to those injured and a speedy recovery. We don't have all of the facts and maybe never will.

I got the pics...
They kinda suck (too small)...


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